Across Asia, workplace projects have a history of attaining remarkable quality and innovation through collaborative team efforts with speed and less conflict among those involved. While universal project management principles certainly apply, examining key regional philosophies and practices provides valuable perspectives on fostering collective success.
Asia’s traditional master builder ethos emphasizes a team’s shared responsibility for overall project outcomes. This has led to a strong preference for design-build and turnkey approaches, where cohesive groups take comprehensive accountability, regardless of formal contracts. Quality is collectively defined, pursued, and measured in accordance with the way in which their clients would define project success.
Integrated project delivery methods prevalent across Asia align well with this cultural context. They promote unified team direction from the start and proactive engagement with all stakeholders. Clients, designers, builders, engineers, and specialists work interdependently, focusing holistically on the big picture. Such practices enhance communication channels while reinforcing quality execution.
Harmony in All Parts
A Comprehensive Approach to Project Integration
While designers the world over begin by understanding the clients’ needs, their culture and their aspirations for the workplace, the Asian Project Leaders, having lived in an environment where design build delivery has been the norm, tend to look beyond a strategist or designer role to act as though they are the single point of accountability for every aspect including a strong sense of responsibility for the completed results. In this sense they fuse the best of design led and project manager led approach into a holistic leader.
Such project leaders are very good at broadening the perspectives of all involved in the workplace project at least in part because they strive to bring all parties together early into the project at the earliest possible time. This has an effect of significantly enhancing collaborative efforts and synergies of all these interdependent efforts.
In real terms, this means a strategy, design, budget or schedule created in the ideation of the project encompasses all the different inputs of the expertise available and gives the project the highest chance of not being blindsided by unanticipated inputs at a later stage.
Antonia Su, Director of M Moser Taipei expresses a point while directors Charles Corley and Wing Leung listen intently.
Seeding Success Early
Proactive Early Involvement
Successful Asian firms often kick off major workplace projects with workshops, bringing together representatives from all involved groups. Whether in workshops or day to day interactions, participants gain complete understanding of the client’s aspirations and build camaraderie through aligning objectives and identifying potential risks.
Wing Leung, Director of Advanced Professional Solutions explains the importance of that unified vision: “in order to make all interactions focused and fruitful, we begin by more deeply understanding the projects key performance indicators and the deeper understanding of the goals and objectives. From that point, it is a typically Asian response for all parties to rally around that well-defined shared vision and set of objectives.”
Psychological safety enables open communication and collaboration. Participants view each other as teammates with a common goal rather than as adversaries. Seeding success early through such engagement facilitates cooperation, mitigates contention, and maintains team cohesion throughout projects.
Workshops at critical stages reinforce goals and shared objectives while bonding team members.
Envisioning the destination.
Start with the end in mind
Defining quality benchmarks and key performance indicators early on guides behaviors and decisions collaboratively made thereafter. Designers grasp the downstream implications of their choices, while builders internalize quality targets in their daily work. With shared vision, the holistic integrative leaders and integrated teams act as a single point of accountability.
Commitment to cost transparency and blending design with execution are practices commonly adopted in Asia to ensure accountability. This approach transcends models that yield to pressures of limiting time of involvement and siloed responsibilities, facilitating a unified journey toward the highest quality outcomes.
Holistic integrative project leadership set quality targets and establish measurements
Mastering the Art of Planning
Visualizing the sequence of efforts
Construction sequencing and schedules are visualized early using advanced tools, aiding design refinement and pre-construction preparation. Tenderers gain insights enabling better methodologies and pricing when they can see their packages in 3D and see a visual sequence of how their work will dovetail with the efforts of others. Quick adaptations of sequencing the work allow extensive scenario testing while incorporating trades’ expertise, enhancing quality and innovation.
Sophisticated 3D modeling provides holistic sequence overviews alongside detailed virtual mockups of assemblies. Easier to create than physical mockups, these 3D virtual mockups help teams visualize work before undertaking it on site. Such techniques have proven extremely useful for navigating today’s complex workplace projects and laboratory buildouts.
Discussing a 3D sequence on site in Bangalore
Animation showing typical visual sequence of construction
Concord of Purpose
Uniting Teams with Technology
While major projects inherently involve geographical distribution of talent, Asian firms adeptly utilize technology to unite far-flung team members. Contemporary digital tools provide effective remote collaboration, aligning focus while resolving issues in real time across distances. Virtual visualizations are invaluable for shared understanding. Technical complexities transform into easily comprehensible models and mockups
Seeking collaborative solutions in an integrated manner requires that everyone see and understand the issues easily and the best way to achieve this is with realistic views at every turn. The integrative and holistic minded project leaders incorporate expertise and their contributions for quality outcomes using live real-time work sessions enabling truly collaborative issue resolution using immersive views of the project.
Antonia Su, director of M Moser Taipei, feels the use of the live virtualization tools has benefited the large mission critical projects that she and her team have been leading. One of those projects recently completing is the complete design and build delivery of 1.4million square feet for TSMC.
She explains how 3D tools and immersive visualized models have benefitted the project “3D models are not just used in design. They have been used extensively in visualizing scope definition, building analysis, design development and working sessions that bring the various participants together to resolve issues proactively. The use of 3D virtual construction modeling has transformed our approach to communicating visually.”
Trimble Connect being used online for a live interactive session in Taipei
A multi-disciplinary team in Singapore resolve issues together.
Seeing the Unseen
Visualize Everything
Transforming complex technical issues into easily comprehensible visuals is very useful practice of the effective holistic project leader. Using light nimble software to quickly model specific areas of complexity make the issue easily understood by all . As a result, we can see what was nearly impossible to see and then participate in resolutions without necessarily being the technical expert.
Visualizing complexities or unusual assemblies enables early testing of solutions and an enhanced ability for clients and their teams to envision choices leading to better decision making. It is through this lens that intricate problems are often identified and solved as a team together and not just a technical exercise. It calls upon the designer’s insight combined with technical personnel, ensuring that technical fixes work well with the project’s aesthetic and functional vision.
In essence, visualizing the unseen is not just about detecting clashes; it’s about fostering a shared understanding and maintaining the integrity of a project’s vision ensuring that decisions are not made in isolation, keeping the resolution strategies collaborative and integrated.
3 dimensional mockups are used often in Asia as the basis of reports and for virtual mockups of any aspect of the work.
Flowing with The Changes
Nimble responsiveness to circumstances
Integrated teams possessing collective accountability adapt extremely well to changing circumstances or shifting requirements. Their cohesive flexibility provides resilience, enabling rapid reactions even when business targets remain fixed. Holistic oversight maximizes responsiveness without compromising timelines or budget.
Asia’s design-build history provides familiarity with such nimble coordination even in other forms of contract. Directors note that integrated project leadership backed by proactive and holistic project leadership has the greatest probability of smoothly incorporating modifications. A disconnected, siloed approach reacts far less quickly and seamlessly in contrast.
An integrated team is more nimble and capable of adapting to rapidly evolving circumstances
Weaving It All Together
Cultural diversity enriches perspectives
Global mobility and interpersonal networks create an inclusive culture beyond geographic boundaries. Professionals who relocate between offices in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas bring diversity of culture and outlook. Different regional strengths and capabilities interweave and enrich collective project execution.
Thriving enterprises build enduring bonds across borders. Combining proven Asian philosophies of integrated leadership and accountability with worldwide best practices perpetually renews the focus on achieving project excellence. There is no longer an “East” or “West” way, simply the most holistic path forward.
Examining Asian Project leadership approaches provides impactful lessons for elevating quality, innovation, and stakeholder satisfaction. By emphasizing collective ownership and orchestrating integrated teams, Asian project leadership offers time-tested methods for surpassing project goals.
Acknowledging interdependence, clearly defining objectives and then aligning all stakeholders sets the stage for delivering maximum value which is achieved through an ethos of accountability, use of the latest technologies and a highly visual approach to communication.
